Information Technology Reference
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strategies of learning, knowledge and task analysis, design processes
and other systemic issues, and which attracted funding from,
among others, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Employ-
ment and the United States Air Force. At the same time he worked
as a theatrical producer and built a number of special purpose,
electro-mechanical, chemical and biological computers, including
'Musicolour', which drove an array of different coloured lights that
were lit in accordance to a musician's performance, and the 'Self-
Adaptive Keyboard Instructor' or SAKI, an adaptive teaching tool
for typing. His chemical computers from
1958
were self-organizing
systems that grew their own sensors. Later in
1970
he built a cyber-
netic sculpture,
Colloquy of Mobiles
(illus.
), in which automata
'conversed' and which allowed a human spectator to join in. This
was followed by the
Course Assembly System and Tutorial Environ-
ment
or
CASTE
(
25
), which enabled the user to work through
complex bodies of information, and the
Thoughtsticker
, which
mapped the user's ideas and suggested novel combinations.
1972
25 Gordon Pask,
Colloquy
of Mobiles
, as installed at
'Cybernetic Serendipity'
at the ICA, 1968; note the
computer in the back-
ground.
